


And hearts are brave again

by Sororising



Series: SamSteve week 2016 [4]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Asexual Character, Asexual Steve Rogers, Demisexual Sam Wilson, Established Relationship, Kinks, M/M, Non-sexual kinks, SamSteve Week 2016
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-12
Updated: 2016-08-12
Packaged: 2018-08-08 06:31:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7746802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sororising/pseuds/Sororising
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Steve! You’ve been holding out on me. You totally have a kink. Wait, do you even know what kinks are?”</p><p>Steve glares at him. It might look a tiny bit threatening if he didn’t still have pillow creases covering one side of his face.</p><p>“I know what they are. I have the internet. Plus I’m friends with Tony Stark.” He hesitates. “But I can’t have any, remember? I’m - you know.”</p><p>Sam sighs. “You know you can have kinks even though you’re asexual, right? The two aren’t mutually exclusive.”</p><p>Steve blinks for a moment. “Oh,” he says, and, well, it looks like Sam’s day is about to get a hell of a lot more interesting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And hearts are brave again

**Author's Note:**

> Written for day 5 of SamSteve week 2016, for the prompt: Kinks. Basic premise is that not all kinks are sexual.
> 
> Feedback very appreciated, this was written very quickly so there are probably mistakes, sorry!
> 
> Title is from the hymn 'For All the Saints;' all my titles in this series come from it.

* * *

“Do you want to have sex with me?”

Well, that was a random question to be woken up for.

Sam tries to pull himself out of sleep as quickly as possible, trying to collect his thoughts as he does so. Gone are his army days, when he could hear a sudden noise and startle into full awareness instantly. Not that he misses that part of life there in the slightest, but Steve had sounded almost scared, which is worrying for all sorts of reasons.

For one thing, Sam’s seen him face down what had felt like half of HYDRA with a perfectly calm expression on his face, so that idea that this is a topic that inspires more fear in Steve than a bunch of murderous super-Nazis - well, that’s not a great thought to be having, so he decides to be mature and ignore it.

“Nope,” Sam says easily, and for some reason that just makes Steve look even more anxious.

What the hell?

“But you’re, um, demisexual,” Steve says. “You said that you only feel sexual attraction to people when you’re already emotionally attached to them?”

Ah. Sam is beginning to get a sense of what’s wrong. He just has to wait and see exactly how badly Steve has managed to misinterpret the situation this time.

To be fair, it’s not like there’s a whole lot of literature about attitudes towards anyone on the asexual spectrum in the thirties. They hadn’t had any kind of terminology for it back then; hell, they hadn’t had much of it back when Sam was growing up, so it isn’t like he can’t relate to Steve’s confusion.

He’s brought it up with Steve before, but after the first _I just sort of thought I was broken or that God was punishing me, I guess,_ Sam had decided that he was going to only talk about that when neither of them were in an even slightly emotional mood.

“That’s true,” is all Sam says in reply to Steve’s question, because he still thinks he knows where this is going but he doesn’t want to be the one to actually say it.

“We’ve been dating for a couple of months now, though. Are you - am I still not attractive to you like that?”

Such a painful and unnecessary way to ask if Sam’s in love with him. Then again, if Steve Rogers has ever done anything the easy way, Sam definitely hasn’t heard about it yet.

“I am very attracted to you, in about every way it’s possible to be,” Sam says gently. “That wasn’t actually what you asked, remember?”

He can practically _see_ Steve replaying their conversation back in his mind. The moment when it clicks for him is very, very obvious, because he starts looking hopeful for the first time since he’d woken Sam up.

“I asked if you want to have sex with me,” Steve says, and it’s almost but not quite a question. “And you said you, um, you're sexually attracted to me?” Good deduction skills, Rogers. Please never become a spy. Now just follow it through to the logical conclusion.

“So,” Steve continues. “The reason you don’t want to have sex with me isn’t because you aren’t attracted to me like that, it’s because I don’t want to have sex with anyone?”

Bingo.

“Pretty much,” Sam says, leaning over to give Steve a quick kiss on the cheek. “I’ve said it before, but I can say it as many times as you want me to. I really, really do not care that much about sex, and I’m not going to change my mind about that. What we have is great as it is, right?”

“Of course!” Steve sounds like he’s ready to throw down a gauntlet in front of anyone who might dare to disagree that their relationship is perfection, which, well, is kind of nice to hear.

“So there you go,” Sam says, moving so that he’s hovering over Steve. “If you ever want to try anything, we can give it a go, but I’m not waiting for you to change your mind.”

“Thanks,” Steve says, and Sam decides not to point out that thanking someone for being a decent fucking human being is kind of unnecessary.

Then Steve shifts slightly, and Sam tries to move his arm out of the way but doesn’t manage it in time, and he ends up collapsing on top of Steve.

“Shit, sorry,” he says, trying to pull himself backwards.

Except Steve has put one arm around him, which makes it very difficult to do anything but stay exactly where he is, with all his weight resting on Steve.

Who, yeah, could probably keep breathing with a car sat on his chest, but that’s not the point.

He glances down at Steve’s face, and blinks in surprise at what he sees there.

Steve’s eyes are wide, and he looks like he’s having some kind of revelation.

“You okay?” Sam asks, because he’d like to know what’s going on, especially when it’s happening in his bed.

Steve doesn’t say anything. Sam narrows his eyes, trying to work out what Steve’s expression reminds him of.

It clicks as soon as he remembers an ex-girlfriend of his who’d been really into the whole BDSM scene. She’d loved being held down, though with her it had gone along with wanting to be fucked, which he knew wasn’t going to be the case with Steve.

Well, this was an unexpected discovery. Definitely not what he’d been expecting first thing on an otherwise perfectly average morning.

“Steve! You’ve been holding out on me. You totally have a kink. Wait, do you even know what kinks are?”

Maybe he should have approached the subject a bit more gently than that. The internet might have helped. No, bad idea. It would be hard to find anything that didn’t involve porn if he tried that.

Steve glares at him. It might look a tiny bit threatening if he didn’t still have pillow creases covering one side of his face.

“I know what they are. I have the internet. Plus I’m friends with Tony Stark.” He hesitates, and once again Sam has a feeling he knows what's coming. “But I can’t have any, remember? I’m - you know.”

Sam sighs. “You know you can have kinks even though you’re asexual, right? The two aren’t mutually exclusive.”

Steve blinks for a moment. “Oh,” he says, and, well, it looks like Sam’s day is about to get a hell of a lot more interesting.

“So that’s a kink thing?” Steve asks, sounding more curious than embarrassed. “Me wanting you to hold me down, I mean?”

“I guess,” Sam says. “I don’t think there’s an official list, or anything.”

They get up after a few more minutes, both too hungry to stay in bed even for a session of lazy cuddling - Sam occasionally has moments of cognitive dissonance when he realises that he now does what, yeah, can only be described as _cuddling_ with Captain America on a regular basis.

They’re pretty few and far between though; he’s too happy to have Steve Rogers in his life to focus much on the Captain America side of things.

Sam had assumed that Steve would wait until after they’d eaten breakfast to bring up the whole kinks thing again. 

“Do you have any?” Steve suddenly asks, looking at his plate as though he was talking to his small mountain of pancakes rather than to Sam.

He should have remembered how terrible Steve is at letting anything go.

Sam sort of wants to ask ‘any what?’ just so he can hear Steve say it, but he decides to play nice.

“Any kinks?” 

Steve nods, still at his breakfast.

Sam takes a bite of his waffle. It’s partly to give himself a second to figure out what he’s about to say, but mostly just because they’re really excellent waffles.

“Sure, I guess,” he goes with. “It depends what you mean by kinks, to be honest.”

Even if there is some kind of official definition, it probably changes over time, right? Like, some of the stuff that might have been pretty kinky in the early twentieth century - Sam tries to not remind himself that his boyfriend had been born then, especially not this early in the morning - might be just regular now.

“If I promise not to feel bad that I might not be able to, y’know, give you them,” Steve says hesitantly. “Can you tell me about some? You don’t have to, obviously.”

Sam knows that Steve is actually promising not to _let on_ if he feels bad, which isn’t an insignificant distinction, but it’s not like he’s into anything extreme. And he’s a strong believer in open and honest communication in a relationship, so he’s determined to not be embarrassed by this conversation.

Steve will probably handle the embarrassment for the both of them, anyway

“Sure,” he says, resigning himself to letting the rest of his waffles go cold. “Okay, well. I like being naked? Not in a sexual way. I just used to walk around the house not wearing much. Don’t know if that counts.”

Predictably, Steve is blushing, which isn’t really an answer.

“I like showering or having baths with people,” he continues before Steve has a chance to speak. “I have a thing for people in uniform, shockingly enough. And just competent people in general. I don’t know. There’s probably loads more, I’d have to think about it.”

“None of those are necessarily, um, sexual,” Steve points out.

Well, true.

“I also like when someone fingers me when they’re giving me a blowjob,” Sam says. “You did ask, okay,” he adds when Steve goes from pink to crimson. “I didn’t see the point in including anything like that. I assumed we were talking about things we might want to explore at some point.”

“I feel a little bad,” Steve says. 

Sam had been hoping for that promise to hold longer than five minutes, but he can’t say he’s surprised.

“But I would like to try some of them,” Steve continues, and - well, guess Sam is getting surprised after all.

“Okay, cool,” he says, hoping he isn’t sounding too excited. “No pressure, though. We can wait a bit, or talk it through some more.”

“I’m going to have a shower,” Steve says. “Do you want to join me?”

Wow. 

On reflection, he should probably have remembered that Steve Rogers was a big fan of diving into new situations head first.

And Sam? Well, this was one area where Steve was going to be the one left behind.

“Race you to the bathroom,” he says, shoving his plate of waffles away.

This was going to be fun.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed! And that you felt the subject was treated sensitively. There are so many ways to be on the asexual spectrum, and Steve (sex-averse, asexual) and Sam (not sex-averse, demisexual) are just two examples, so they aren't meant as general representations.
> 
> I may write a short sequel with them actually exploring some of their ideas, but that probably won't be for a week or two.


End file.
